Download The Latest Version of Blender 2.79 With Several New Features

In a twist I would have never guessed years ago, Blenderis my go-to 3D package for general use. Autodesk is shitting on everyone with the subscription model, while the open source Blender keeps improving. If you have element for After Effects and download Blender there is little mograph work that is out of reach.

The denoiser is early in development but will allow users to render with lower sampling and denoise as a post process, similar to a video production workflow actually. Post rendering the process will go tile by tile to try to preserve detail but smooth out the picture. Scrub back and fourth below:

Support for Shadow catching was also added to Cycles. An option as a way to composite the CG renders into a live plate, turning on shadow catcher has the designated object only receive shadows so that it can be combined later in post via alpha channels.

Princicpled BSDF is a new shader node which allows combinations of layers within a single node. It is based off of the Physically Based Rendering shader model from Disney and thus is compatible with other software packages.

The Grease Pencil gets some new features for interpolating between frames and per-layer onion skinning. The onion skinning can be kept visible within OpenGL and animation playback.

Other changes include UI improvements with extra shortcuts, improved Alembic support, OpenCL optmimizations, and a variety of new Add-Ons. Read the full release notes, and download Blender 2.79 to support open source 3D!